


Coffee Vengance

by Elenchus



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Fluff, One Shot, Pre-Slash, vague shades of Gwen/Harry/Peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 01:01:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2488622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenchus/pseuds/Elenchus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Osborn definitely doesn't have a cold. And even if he did, it wouldn't be any of Peter Parker's business.</p>
<p>Peter begs to differ on both counts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coffee Vengance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohbthr (RegicidalDwarf)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RegicidalDwarf/gifts).



> A quick bit of silly Harry/Peter fluff for Ohbthr, to brighten her day.
> 
> The universe and characterizations are roughly TASM, but with most of the drama extracted out. No one is slowly dying from a rare disease, no one is trying to destroy Spider-Man, and no one is getting anywhere near a clock-tower without reasonable safety precautions.

“Don’t say it, Parker. Don’t even think it.”

Harry let out a deep, wet cough as Peter looked on in horror.

"Ok, yeah, Harry you’ve definitely got-“

“Allergies. Very bad allergies.”

He coughed again, and nearly collapsed in his chair from the effort.

“And also a cold,” Peter said. Harry glared at him and Peter pretended not to notice. Possibly he actually didn’t notice; Harry was never sure how much of Peter’s cluelessness was genuine.

“I’m too busy to have a cold. I have a meeting with investors in half an hour.”

“I hate to break this to you, Harry, but I don’t think your staff gave the microbes of the world your schedule. Massive oversight, I know. Also, you’re not going anywhere.”

“Of course I am.” Harry started to get up from his chair just to show how very going-y he was, but thought better of it when the room started spinning slowly around him. “People like me don’t get colds,” he muttered, not caring that he sounded like a six-year old.

“So your counterargument to my case that you are seriously ill, based on solid and irrefutable evidence, is that you have too much money for the common cold?”

“People with money don’t get colds; they get rare genetic diseases from centuries of inbreeding. And gout.” Harry was relatively certain that rich people got gout. He’d never actually met anyone with gout, but it sounded right. His medical reverie was cut short by another fit of coughing.

“Look man,” said Peter, “it doesn’t matter what you say you’ve got. How many of your fancy investors are going to be happy when you have ‘allergies’ all over their expensive suits?”

It was a decent point, as much as Harry didn’t want to admit it. “I’m sure my father never got a cold,” he said petulantly. Peter refused to budge, and Harry sighed. “Fine. I’ll send Ms. Hardy instead. I’m going to my office – does that make you happy?”

“Only if ‘office’ is rich-person slang for ‘bedroom.’ Which is actually pretty plausible, now that I think about it. Or if your office has a bed. That you’re going to sleep in. Because you have a cold.”

* * *

Harry’s office didn’t have a bed (obviously) and he certainly wasn’t going to do any sleeping (also obviously). He was an important person with a busy and important schedule, and no time to give up just because Peter Parker had the idiotic notion that he needed to rest.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take Peter long to find Harry’s office. Harry would bet Felicia had told him – those two always seemed to be whispering to each other when they thought Harry wasn’t looking. Not that Harry cared, of course. It was none of his business whom either of them chose to befriend.

He realized he was scowling at Peter and trained his face into a more neutral and not-at-all-ill-looking expression.

“Hey, Harry! Fancy running into you here!”

“This is my office, Peter.”

“Whaaat? No way! I was just, you know, with the building, and the, uh, stairs, so…” Peter gestured frantically with his hands, clearly attempting to convey a sense of profound confusion and surprise.

“What do you want, Peter?”

“Well, it’s actually great I ran into you, because I need some help with a school project.” Peter waggled his eyebrows hopefully.

Harry found that extremely doubtful. Peter was at the top of every class he was in, and if he really needed a partner there was always the perfect Ms. It’s Complicated.

He was scowling again. Odd how that kept happening. Allergies, probably.

Peter was still talking, as Peter was wont to do. “You see, I need to, uh, observe the resting and sleeping states of several human subjects, and one of them needs to be a college-aged male. And I need to write my report up tonight, so it’s pretty urgent.”

“So you’re telling me you need me to sleep. For science.”

“Yeah! Exactly!”

Harry sighed. Some things never changed, and Peter was apparently one of them. “Goodbye, Peter. I’m sure you can see yourself out.”

* * *

In another hour Harry could barely keep his head up, but his calendar remained as full as ever and he remained determined to push through. Not that there was anything to push through, because he wasn’t sick, just tired. He called for another cup of coffee, and sat back in real surprise when Peter’s Gwen Stacy was the one to deliver it.

“You don’t work in my office,” he said, because stating the obvious was always the best way to cover awkwardness. Smooth, Osborn.

“What? Oh. No.” Stacy put the coffee cup down and smoothed her hair out of her face, looking nervous. Which probably meant-

“Did Peter send you?”

“No? No! Definitely not!” Stacy nodded emphatically, which meant that Peter definitely had sent her. “It’s just that-“ Stacy looked around theatrically, and lowered her voice to a stage whisper. “I think the company nurse might be up to something. Maybe a spy. Probably evil. I thought maybe you should go check him out. Maybe rest on his cot so you can watch him. I’d go, but I think he’s onto me being onto him.”

Gwen Stacy was brilliant in many fields – even Harry had to grudgingly admit that – but acting was clearly not one of them. “Go tell Peter to do it, since he apparently has an excess of free time on his hands. And while you’re at it, tell him that I’m not leaving this office.”

* * *

The coffee was growing less and less effective. Harry drank as much of it as he could, but after the first cup or two he could have sworn it wasn’t doing anything for him. He put his head down next to his keyboard for just a moment, and then jerked back upright as he realized what he’d been close to doing. “’m not sick,” he muttered to his computer. His computer didn’t respond, which was a relief. You never knew at Oscorp.

There was a sound of soft footsteps behind him, and Harry swiveled his chair around to see Peter Parker sneaking into his office yet again.

“I’m working. Very hard.” he told Peter. “So hard. Can’t have cold.” His performance was slightly compromised by the fact that he nearly slid forward out to his chair while gesturing his perfect health to Peter.

“Yeah, dude, I can tell.” Peter had brought a blanket, and a cup of something that definitely wasn’t coffee. Harry was an expert at things that were or weren’t coffee. He sniffed at the cup suspiciously as Peter put it on his desk next to the row of empty coffee cups. Some kind of tea. Herbal, he thought. Calming. But why was Peter bringing him drinks at all, even drinks that failed to be coffee? Why had his staff-

A slow, horrible suspicious began to unfold in Harry’s mind. He latched onto it, even through the haze of- of whatever was going on that wasn’t a cold. “You- you _bastard_ ,” he said, with deep and real feeling.

Peter looked torn between guilt and pride. “I don’t know what you mean,” he very clearly lied.

“ _Decaf_.” Harry infused the word with all the horror he felt. “You smuggled _decaf_ into my office.”

Pride won, and Peter beamed. “That would be super hard and not at all possible,” he said cheerfully. “It would be brilliant though. So, so brilliant. If one could manage it.”

“I’m going to murder you. I’m going to destroy everything you love, and then make you drink _decaf_ brewed in your own tears.”

“Of course you are. Totally.” Peter draped the blanket he was carrying around Harry’s shoulders, then _picked him up_ out of his chair. “You’re very scary and fierce.”

Peter was apparently much stronger than he looked, and Harry much weaker than he felt he should be. He couldn’t even find the strength to insist that Peter put him down. Harry had the sudden horrifying thought that if Peter didn’t put him down soon, he was going to _fall asleep in Peter Parker’s arms_. That was something he’d never be able to live down, so he struggled weakly against the blankets.

“If I put you down,” said Peter, “do you promise to walk to street and let me drive you home? Where you will sleep and not do any work?”

“Vengannnnnnccceeee” Harry murmured against Peter’s shirt. Peter was very warm, he noticed. Warm, and strong, and all sorts of nice things that didn’t belong in Harry’s life. Maybe Harry wouldn’t destroy him in caffeine vengeance after all.

That was the last thought he remembered having for several hours. When he came to later, he found himself wrapped in a pile of blankets in a room he didn’t recognize. He had a moment of near panic – he’d been kidnapped a time or two in the past – before he recognized Peter Parker slumped against the door, sleeping soundly, and Gwen Stacy asleep in a chair. The pictures on the wall made it clear he was in Peter’s room, and that thought made his breath hitch with something he refused to name.

Maybe, just maybe, he could pretend for a few hours that he was the kind of person who got colds and had friends who’d take care of him. It was, at the very least, a pleasant sort of dream.

 


End file.
